Assen MotoGP: Petrucci fastest in red-flagged first practice
Pramac Ducati's Danilo Petrucci set the pace in the opening MotoGP practice session for the Dutch TT at Assen, which started in dramatic fashion.
Danilo Petrucci, Pramac Racing
Gold and Goose / Motorsport Images
Andrea Dovizioso, winner of the previous two races, had to pull over at the very beginning of the session, with his Ducati smoking and leaking oil.
His teammate Jorge Lorenzo and Tech 3 Yamaha's Jonas Folger both crashed right afterwards, the latter limping away from his incident, and the session was red-flagged.
After a lengthy clean-up on track, the session was finally restarted more than half hour after the original start.
First place was traded between several riders in the early stages, as Loris Baz's initial benchmark of 1m39.155s was lowered to 1m35.526s by Marc Marquez with Hector Barbera, Cal Crutchlow, Dani Pedrosa and Petrucci all taking turns to lead.
The reigning champion was the first rider to hold on to the lead for any lenghth of time, albeit just 0.002s ahead of Alvaro Bautista's Aspar Ducati.
However, soon the Yamaha riders took over, with first Tech 3's Johann Zarco then points leader Maverick Vinales taking the lead.
Fearing rain could potentially hit the track in FP2 and FP3, the field spent the last 10 minutes focusing on setting competitive times.
LCR Honda's Cal Crutchlow was the first rider to go below the 1m35s barrier, but he was soon demoted by Zarco and Petrucci.
In the end, Petrucci's 1m34.680s effort was the benchmark, but his Pramac Ducati had a bike failure just as the session ended.
Zarco was a tenth slower and ended up second, followed by Crutchlow, Dovizioso and Valentino Rossi.
Rossi and his teammate Vinales, who was only 12th after failing to improve in the final 15 minutes, both had a new Yamaha chassis at their disposal in the session.
Suzuki's Andrea Iannone was sixth ahead of Pedrosa and Folger, who visited the medical centre after his early-session crash, but was cleared by the time of the restart.
Lorenzo recovered from his early crash to end up ninth ahead of Aspar Ducati's Karel Abraham.
Marc VDS Honda's Jack Miller suffered two brake failures early in the session, but was able to run for most of the practice to end up 11th ahead of Vinales and Marquez.
Suzuki's Alex Rins was 18th, nine tenths slower than Iannone, on his return from injury, while Bradley Smith, who missed the previous race because of a hand injury, was 23rd and last on his KTM.
Following the delay to practice, the second session will take place 10 minutes later than originally scheduled at 1415 local time.
FP1 results:
Pos. | Rider | Bike | Time | Gap |
---|---|---|---|---|
1 | Danilo Petrucci | Ducati | 1'34.680 | |
2 | Johann Zarco | Yamaha | 1'34.806 | 0.126 |
3 | Cal Crutchlow | Honda | 1'34.822 | 0.142 |
4 | Andrea Dovizioso | Ducati | 1'34.829 | 0.149 |
5 | Valentino Rossi | Yamaha | 1'34.841 | 0.161 |
6 | Andrea Iannone | Suzuki | 1'34.914 | 0.234 |
7 | Dani Pedrosa | Honda | 1'34.936 | 0.256 |
8 | Jonas Folger | Yamaha | 1'35.052 | 0.372 |
9 | Jorge Lorenzo | Ducati | 1'35.155 | 0.475 |
10 | Karel Abraham | Ducati | 1'35.183 | 0.503 |
11 | Jack Miller | Honda | 1'35.193 | 0.513 |
12 | Maverick Viñales | Yamaha | 1'35.263 | 0.583 |
13 | Marc Marquez | Honda | 1'35.282 | 0.602 |
14 | Scott Redding | Ducati | 1'35.381 | 0.701 |
15 | Alvaro Bautista | Ducati | 1'35.528 | 0.848 |
16 | Pol Espargaro | KTM | 1'35.562 | 0.882 |
17 | Aleix Espargaro | Aprilia | 1'35.722 | 1.042 |
18 | Alex Rins | Suzuki | 1'35.877 | 1.197 |
19 | Sam Lowes | Aprilia | 1'35.898 | 1.218 |
20 | Hector Barbera | Ducati | 1'35.916 | 1.236 |
21 | Tito Rabat | Honda | 1'36.404 | 1.724 |
22 | Loris Baz | Ducati | 1'36.819 | 2.139 |
23 | Bradley Smith | KTM | 1'37.603 | 2.923 |
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